woensdag 7 november 2012

Wij zijn meer dan de optelsom van onze gezamenlijke dromen

Uit de speech van een van de grootste verbinders van deze eeuw, zijn delen te lezen die overstijgend zijn en daarmee universeel. Met elkaar vormen zij een boodschap van compassie, hoop, dromen, ambitie en de noodzaak om samen hard te werken aan een gezamenlijke toekomst in uitdagende tijden.Laat deze woorden dienen tot de inspiratie die we zoeken, waardoor we nader tot elkaar kunnen komen en met elkaar de bergen en dalen betreden. De paden van ons verleden, heden en toekomst, wijzen ons de weg. De beweging zit in jou.It moves forward because of you.It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression,the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are a family, and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.No matter what you do or where you go from here, you will carry the memory of the history we made together. Thank you for believing all the way to every hill, to every valley.And when we go through tough times, when we make big decisions as a country, it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy. These arguments we have are a mark of our liberty, and we can never forget that as we speak, people in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue about the issues that matter.It's not always a straight line. It's not always a smooth path. By itself, the recognition that we have common hopes and dreams won't end all the gridlock, resolve all our problems or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward.That common bond is where we must begin.It has never been about what can be done for us; it's about what can be done by us together.I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the road blocks that stand in our path. I'm not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight. I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions.